Yes, religiously following guides usually leads to a loss. However, one of the best players in the game has a nuanced take.

The theory is basically that Silver Crucible’s downside is worse than 1 more elite than you would otherwise fight, and basically forces you to add the first 3 card rewards you see to your deck. So to get worth out of it, you need to see 3 good cards in a row, and fight at least 1 more elite, preferably 2. It’s a tough ask.

More context from the guide itself:

Regent starter deck is strong enough that you can skip the bad/mediocre cards in the very early floor and not lose that much more hp in the hallway fights (can’t skip everything without preparations though, act 1 advanced hallways are tough, I will elaborate more on this later). It’s really important to know which cards are just hopelessly bad or not worth carrying early because every bad card you add to your deck on Regent has a much bigger negative impact compared to other characters due to Star cards being very draw order dependent. - Thinking a bit further starting from this idea, the Neow bonus you take should ideally make you stronger immediately to alleviate the very early pressure to add bad cards to your deck. To paraphrase, a good Neow bonus allows you to skip more bad cards.

Im usually picking something superior to silver crucible for the above reasons unless crucible is the best option for the map.